Link Farming and FindWhat.com

Anybody Recognize This Arrangement

[ToLearn]

My site is with FindWhat.com. I noticed last week that hundreds of web sites now link to my site example: <snip> with my site as a featured site using my FindWhat.com description.

This Link Farm site is killing me with Google and I am sure others. I emailed FindWhat and they haven't replied.

Has anybody else seen this? How can I track down the owner of the Link Farm site. A Who Is search produces nothing and shows the site is vailable for purchase.

Thanks.

ToLearn

[edited by: Macguru at 3:30 pm (utc) on Nov. 11, 2002]
[edit reason] No specific URL, please. [/edit]

[rogerd]

A Who Is search ... shows the site is vailable for purchase.

That doesn't sound right, ToLearn. Of course, you could just spend $15 to register the domain if it's really available and change the nameserver settings... :)

[rogerd]

Hmmm, based on looking at some of the linking domains you stickied me, ToLearn, this appears to be a variation on the UltimateSearch scam, where someone grabs a bunch of (expired?) domains and fills them with more or less identical content. The domain ownership resolves to a Cayman Islands based firm. Surprisingly, the ones I looked at had decent PR, so they don't appear to be penalized.

A couple of points: First, are these links really showing up as backlinks in Google? The link URL is a coded redirect that I doubt if Google or anyone else can read. OTOH, I assume your URL does appear on the page like all the other sites, so it's entirely possible it is being picked up as text.

Second, I think it's unlikely that these links will result in a penalty to you - every FW advertiser would be penalized if that were the case. Even the sites themselves, as spammy as they are, don't seem to have picked up a penalty yet. Do you have any evidence to back up your belief that these sites are causing you a Google problem? I'm not being argumentative, it just seems unlikely - I clicked on a few sites listed in this "directory" and their PR looked OK at first glance.

What should you do? Well, reporting this to FindWhat would be a start. They may not object, though, since these sites are generating some extra clicks for them. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to cut this joker off...

You could report this junk to Google, too - it looks like these sites have thousands of pages each in the index, with apparently duplicate content. I don't know if Google will find this objectionable, but I doubt if most searchers find it of great value.

As far as your own site, I'd work on getting quality links from other sites. Generally, if you have a well-linked site, the presence of some spammy links won't hurt you. If you know have a Google problem, I'd look at other aspects of your site and linkage for clues. Good luck!